Originally published in July 1864 Credit: Scientific American Advertisement “There is a popular belief that wheat found in the ancient sepulchres of Egypt will not only germinate after the lapse of 3,000 years, but produce ears of extraordinary size and beauty. The question is undecided; but Antonio Figari-Bey’s paper, addressed to the Egyptian Institute at […]
On Tuesday headlines around the world hailed a common steroid drug as a “breakthrough” treatment for the most severe cases of coronavirus—based on findings from a large, randomized controlled trial in the U.K. The findings, announced in a press release, have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But experts say there is good […]
Most children have a decent sense of reality. They get that dinosaurs existed and that SpongeBob is fictional. But a new study found that in the young brain, the realness of cultural fabrications such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny exists somewhere in between reality and make believe. And it concluded that our rituals […]
A hectic pace of development spurred by expiring national and state incentive programs has caused multiple reliability problems among the world’s most advanced solar energy plants, according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Hurrying to complete plants and meet operational and financial deadlines often left crews assigned to operate the plants […]
On Tuesday headlines around the world hailed a common steroid drug as a “breakthrough” treatment for the most severe cases of coronavirus—based on findings from a large, randomized controlled trial in the U.K. The findings, announced in a press release, have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But experts say there is good […]
A team of physicists has made what might be the first-ever detection of an axion. Axions are unconfirmed, hypothetical ultralight particles from beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, which describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Theoretical physicists first proposed the existence of axions in the 1970s in order to resolve problems in the math governing […]
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe as we know it began in the instant of time we call the big bang. At this moment, very hot and dense energy and matter suffused the cosmos, fueling the expansion of space. In the first split second afterward, many physicists posit, the universe went through a phase […]
As our country battles two simultaneous major public health crises—COVID-19 and systemic racism—our now endemic public health crisis of gun violence looms over the United States and leaves many of us in health care sleepless at night. American gun violence predates and will far outlive COVID-19—and its threat has burgeoned in the pandemic’s shadow as […]
Five digits radiating from a palm, an arrangement both flexible and strong—capable of playing a piano, wielding a hammer, offering a comforting touch. The hand is our most familiar body part, central to most everyday tasks, from dressing and driving to cooking and texting. Yet from an evolutionary standpoint, it remains largely mysterious, particularly when […]
Black people are about three times more likely than white people to be killed by a police officer. Outrage over this long-running and relentless situation has boiled over in the past few weeks, with people across the U.S. taking to the streets to protest the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and so many others. […]